1950-1953 During the 1950 federal hearings on organized crime, two Northern California gamblers — Walter “Big Bill” Melburn Pechart and David “Dave” Nathan Kessel — were uncooperative, according to the questioners. They were Senators Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.), Charles Tobey (R-N.H.) and Alexander Wiley (R-Wisc.), congressmen who comprised the Kefauver Committee, or the United States Senate…
1930s-1952 Salvatore “Tar Baby” Orester Terrano is one of numerous criminals whom Nevada gambling regulators approved to own a casino in the state. In May 1947, the tax commission granted the Northern Californian, then 43, a probationary, 30-day gambling license to offer roulette, craps, 21 and slot machines at the Twin States casino at Lake…
1948 When Pasadena, California vice squad officers got a tip that chef/restaurant owner Paul B. Weston, 56, was sidelining as an illegal bookie, they raided his home and found gambling paraphernalia — where else? — under the stove. And, sealing Weston’s fate, while the police were in his residence, they fielded 10 phone calls to…
1933 When panhandling in Bakersfield, California, an Arthur J. Hayden received 25 cents ($4.70 today), which he took to a casino and parlayed into $690 ($13,000 today). The next day he grew his winnings to $1,000 ($19,000 today), which he put in a postal savings account. When he went back to begging on the street,…
1924-1932 The story of the estate of a long-ago Nevada gambler after his passing is strange and unfortunate. John Quinn was a man who’d lost and made large fortunes in gambling and mining stock deals throughout The Silver State and other parts of the West. He’d opened the first saloon-gambling house in the mining town…
1913 As what the Los Angeles Times called the “the first sally in the greatest campaign that has ever been waged for the elimination of gambling” (April 7, 1913), Los Angeles Chief of Police Charles E. Sebastian offered a $100 reward ($2,500 today) for information that led to the arrest and conviction of anyone operating an…
1911-1912 A San Francisco, California ordinance outlawed bucket shopping in 1911 — no longer was running or visiting such an enterprise legal — and one operator didn’t like it. Henry A. Moss, a bucket shop owner and Nevada citizen, vowed to fight the new law, as it prohibited him from running his four San Francisco branches, which…
1971-1974 In 1971, various people began complaining to the local police department they’d gotten fleeced at an informal casino setup in California’s San Fernando Valley (yes, the location of, like, “valley girl” fame, a culture that developed a decade later). The Dirty Details Consequently, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Federal Bureau of Investigation…